Creating Habitat

• Plants inhabit much of the world's deserts, save for stretches of open sand dunes, saline flats and other inhospitable terrain. In doing so, they create diverse habitat for other organisms. Saguaros in the Sonoran Desert form open woodlands, for example, producing shade and offering nesting habitat for elf owls and other creatures.
  
  

Impacting Water Availability

• Desert plants have evolved numerous methods of obtaining and conserving water, that scarcest precious resource in these arid environments. Animals may extract water by eating plants or drink dew condensed on them. Plants themselves transfer water from desert soils to the atmosphere through transpiration.
  
  

Animal Effects

• Overgrazing by both wild and domestic ungulates can sometimes convert semi-arid grassland to a desert environment. Human beings are the animals most influential in deserts. They modify drainage schemes, irrigate heavily and introduce livestock, and their industrial activities may promote climatic change that affects the ecology and extent of existing deserts.